I know it sounds silly, but when you plug in your headphones or speakers into the jack, really push it in there. i had the same problems with my 256 i just got the other day. it sounded messed up with the headphones so i plugged a pair of computer speakers in and it sounded great. when i went to plug in the headphones, i noticed then went in further (didnt show any metal at all). Its a common problem.
I did not use my MP3 player for 3 days, and when I tried to play it again, the sound was terrible. I could barely hear the voices and drums (except the cymbals) and the guitars were all distorted. So I deleted everything and just added one song at highest sound quality and it worked fine. So I put all of the other songs back on at regular sound quality. It worked fine for about 2 days until it started the same thing and I cant get it to work again this time. what can i do?

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